Symbolism and Animation—Fantasia: the Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1940) | Satellite Gallery Blog Symbolism and Animation—Fantasia: the Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1940) Posted on October 27, 2012 by Satellite Gallery | Leave a comment by Jane Sojin Kim Animation as an art form is quite mind-blowing in terms of how it influences our collective unconscious. I believe that there is a deep symbolic root in animation: each movement and speech sound in animation is the (un)conscious reflection of the artist who has been interwoven within it whether s/he realizes or not. Out of repetitive inanimate lines, a visceral movement is achieved at the end. The nature of animation itself is an illusion full of magic. I was one of those kids obsessed with Walt Disney’s animations. I can still vividly remember every visual moment and dialogue in each and every Disney film. Recently, I had a chance to watch Disney’s Fantasia: Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1940) for the first time in twenty years. As I watched it I realized that the film reveals symbolic representations of the United States in the 1940s.

I want to share some of the hidden messages that I wasn’t conscious of when I watched Fantasia as a kid. In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment of Fantasia, Mickey Mouse ventures through a surrealist dream. Abstract symbols like brooms, water, and Mickey’s outfit seem to represent one familiar landscape—women’s roles in 1940s America. Mickey wears a red gown and a blue hat with stars which seem to signify the American flag (as shown in Figure 1). Figure 1: Mickey Mouse’s outfit resembles the U.S. flag. Fantasia (1940). His temporary authority as a sorcerer allows him to put a spell on a broom (a domesticated object) to do the tedious labor of lifting water from one place to another. As shown in Figure 2, the shadow of the broom has a feminine silhouette with a curved waistline. Figure 2: The broom is untouched as if it was waiting for someone. Fantasia (1940). This is a possible social facsimile of the 1940s where women had joined the military (in noncombat roles) and worked in civilian jobs.

Mickey eventually kills the broom by chopping its head into pieces. The obliterated remnants duplicate into hundreds of other brooms and the labor becomes uncontrollable as if the brooms are not willing to relinquish this newfound independence, like the women of the 40s. The portrayed symbols are not mere accidents, but are the social subconscious of the dreamer. Walt Disney lived in the U.S. during the war; Disney’s role as a social witness might have been transferred into the transparent screen as abstract, yet powerful movements of a mouse. Figure 3: The balance of power rests in the hands of the brooms as if they are manipulating the machinery of war. Their movement is mechanized but almost like a march. Fantasia (1940). There is a dream-like quality in Fantasia, where the ego is revealed. Fantasia takes place in an isolated underground. The locality lacks lighting yet it provides rich shadows, often in their overwhelming presence (as shown in Figure 4). It engenders an uncanny effect as if the suppressed alter-ego of Mickey Mouse and that of the broom surge into the space with a quiet shriek. Figure 4: Shadow plays an overwhelming entity, often larger than the characters.

Fantasia (1940). Representing the contrast (black and white) the shadow implies the Jungian aspect of “the unconscious aspect of mind”. Fighting between the real and the ego, shadow acts as a grey area, where the mixture of black and white, good and evil are intertwined. Fantasia seems to portray the good and evil (there is no in-between). Akin to the hidden alter-ego, shadow is most notable in a scene when Mickey chops the head off the broom with an axe (Figure 5). The violent scene is not shown yet the shadow elucidates the sin of the “innocent” mouse. Fig. 5. Shadow is shown as Mickey commits a violent act. The cleared defined shadow, harsh textures and crisp edges produce a sense of suspense of the enemy within. Fantasia (1940). Here is a link to the film: The Sorcerer's Apprentice | Disney Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia [Source] The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the third and most famous segment in Disney's Fantasia and went on to be the only returning segment in its sequel, Fantasia 2000 .

Based on the poem of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the musical piece, it stars Mickey Mouse as the titular apprentice. Unlike most of the tracks in the film, which were recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra, this composition was the first to be recorded for the film by an ad-hoc 100-piece handpicked orchestra of Los Angeles-based session musicians, which Stokowski conducted. The recording was done in January 1938 at the Pathe Studios in Culver City. Plot The scene starts with Sorcerer Yen Sid working on his magic and his apprentice Mickey doing the chores. After some magic, Yen Sid put his hat down and retired to his chambers. When he was out of sight, Mickey puts the hat on and tries the magic on a broom. He commanded the broom to carry buckets of water to fill a cauldron. Mickey is satisfied, he sat on the chair and fell asleep. He dreamed he was a powerful sorcerer high on top of a penicle commanding the stars, planets, and water. Mickey wakes up to find the room was filled with water, the cauldron was overflowing, and the broom is not stopping.

Mickey tries to stop the broom but with no success. He grabs an axe and chops the broom into pieces. Just when it's all over, the pieces began to grow into more brooms with buckets of water. They keep going to the vat and fill it up. Mickey tries to get the water out but there were too many brooms. Mickey goes to a book and looks for a spell to stop the brooms. Mickey finds himself in a whirlpool. Just then, Yen Sid comes in and sees this and with a wave of his hands, the water descends and the army of brooms decreased to one broom. Yen Sid glares at Mickey, who gives him back his hat and the broom. He picks up the buckets and started back slowly to finish his chores. At the end, Yen Sid whacks Mickey from behind with the broom and Mickey runs out. After the piece is over, Mickey runs to Leopold Stokowski and congratulate each other and Mickey exits and Leopold waves goodbye. Credits 1000+ images about disney on Pinterest | Merida, Historian and Fantasia disney The Sorcerers Apprentice ...

Walt Disneys Mickey Mouse in Fantasia See More Ten Facts About Fantasia (1940) Previous Facts - Next Facts Ten Facts About Walt Disney's Fantasia Here are ten facts about Walt Disney's animated masterpiece from 1940, featuring a compilation of animations accompanied by a soundtrack of classical music. Fact One Fantasia was Walt Disney's third feature film, following on from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940) Fact Two The Sorcerer's Apprentice, perhaps the most famous short of the film Fantasia, starred Mickey Mouse as the, er, Sorcerer's Apprentice. This role was intended as a come-back role for Disney's famous mouse, who was losing out in popularity to Donald Duck. However, also considered for the role of the apprentice was Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The animation itself was also originally going to be a one-off cartoon, but since it was more expensive to produce than regular Disney cartoons and was unlikely to make any profit, Disney decided to make it part of a collection of animated sequences with classical music accompaniments which could then be released as a feature film.

That collection of animated shorts would become Fantasia. Fact Three The conductor of the music used in Fantasia was Leopold Stokowski. When The Sorcerer's Apprentice was being worked on, Stokowski offered to conduct the orchestra for free. He probably changed his mind when he found out he would be conducting the orchestra for the entire film. Fact Four Live action sequences shown between the animated segments show an orchestra playing the soundtrack. In those scenes, the orchestra were miming! The music for all sequences apart from The Sorceror's Apprentice was played by Philadelphia Orchestra. In the film, members of the orchestra pretending to play to the pre-recorded music were local musicians and employees of the film studio. Fact Five The original release of Fantasia featured an intermission which was announced by the film's host, Deems Taylor. The members of the orchestra are seen leaving their seats while the curtains close, both on the film and in the movie theatre showing it.

After the intermission, which would have lasted for fifteen minutes, the curtains in the theatre and on the film open and the orchestra are seen to return to their seats, and then have a bit of a jam session.Â Fact Six Fantasia, which was essentially a way for Walt Disney to show off animation and sound techniques in films, was the first commercial film to have its soundtrack recorded in stereo. It was also planned that parts of it would be shown in widescreen and other parts to be in 3-D, and, to make the film a real treat for the senses, for perfumes to be sprayed into the theatre during the Nutcracker Suite sequence.Â Fact Seven Nowadays, films are completed weeks, months or even years before they get their premiere. Fantasia however was completed four hours before premiering in New York City on November 13th 1940. The final scene to be produced was flown to New York on the day of the premiere and edited into the film in time for its first showing. Fact Eight Despite getting generally good reviews, Fantasia was only shown in twelve movie theatres on its first release due to Disney's distribution company RKO initially deciding not to distribute it.

The meant that the film could not make a profit, and meant that the budget for Disney's next film, Dumbo, was quite low. The film got a national release a couple of years later, although heavily edited (from the original 125 runtime to 81 minutes) and in mono. Again it was a commercial failure. A release in 1956 restored the stereo soundtrack, although it was only on its release in 1969 that the film finally made a profit, due to its psychedelic nature being popular with the teenage and college student audiences of the time. Its soundtrack was completely rerecorded for a 1982 release. Even the host's introductions to each segment were dubbed over. A 1990 release used the original soundtrack which had been digitally remastered, and a release for 2000 saw several of the original 1940 edits finally restored and the film back to its original length. Fact Nine Fantasia was turned into a videogame in 1991. Released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console, the game allowed the player to control Mickey Mouse as he made his way through various scenes in the film.

Although the graphics and the sound were good, the game overall was poor and frustrating to play, mainly down to its unresponsive controls and unfair difficulty level. Fact Ten The sorcerer in The Sorcerer's Apprentice was nicknamed Yen Sid by the animation department although was never given a name in the film. Yen Sid is Disney backwards.Â The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) - FAQ The content of this page was created directly by users and has not been screened or verified by IMDb staff. Visit our FAQ Help to learn more FAQ How much sex, violence, and profanity are in this movie? For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Sorcerer's Apprentice can be found here . What is 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' about?

In order to destroy the evil sorceress Morgana Le Fay ( Alice Krige ), who killed Merlin the Magician in 740 AD, good sorcerer Balthazar Blake ( Nicolas Cage ) has been searching for over 1000 years for the next Prime Merlinean, the only one who has the power to destroy Morgana and her accomplice Maxim Horvath ( Alfred Molina ) and to stop their plan to raise dead evil sorcerers (Morganians) and take over the world. Then one day in the year 2000, 10-year old David Stutler ( Jake Cherry ) wanders into Balthazar's Manhattan shop, the Arcana Cabana, and Balthazar realizes that he's found him. David's life is about to change as he becomes The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Is this a remake of Disney's "Fantasia"? The Sorcerer's Apprentice was loosely inspired by "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Disney's classic movie Fantasia (1940). However, it has been significantly aged up to appeal to older audiences, it is not a cartoon, and it does not feature Mickey Mouse.

Both movies are based on " The Sorcerer's Apprentice ", a 1797 poem by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) .The Disney movie is much closer to Goethe's original story. The screenplay for the film was co-written by Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Matt Lopez, Doug Miro, and Carlo Bernard. How does the movie end? While Dave ( Jay Baruchel ) watches, Balthazar releases Morgana's spirit from Veronica's ( Monica Bellucci ) body and takes it into himself then orders Dave to enclose him and Morgana inside the grimhold. Dave and Veronica balk at the idea, giving Morgana time to escape from Balthazar's body and take her own form. She shoots a wall of fire at Balthazar, but Dave is able to shield him magically, so Morgana begins pelting Balthazar with plasma bolts, knocking him to the ground. Dave steps forward to challenge her, shooting a plasma bolt that misses Morgana and hits a nearby electrical grid. Dave continues to shoot bolts at Morgana, but they pass right through her.

As Morgana pummels Dave with her bolts, electrical wires from the grid begin snaking their way along the ground, converging on the park's lamp posts and creating a Tesla coil that destroys her. Dave turns to Balthazar, but Veronica declares him dead. 'If Morgana can stop his heart, maybe I can start it,' says Dave, and he begins beating Balthazar's chest with plasma, eventually reviving him. Dave welcomes the old man back and returns the necklace so that Balthazar can give it to Veronica himself. Suddenly, Becky ( Teresa Palmer ) runs up to Dave and tells him that she wrote 'girlfriend' on the note. Dave invites her out for breakfast...in France. In the final scene, they fly off together on the back of the steel eagle. What is a Tesla coil? A Tesla coil is an electrical circuit created by wireless transmission of electrical energy between two or more coils that resonate at the same frequency. It was invented by Croatian-born inventor Nikola Tesla around 1891. It produces an alternating current with higher voltage than electrostatic generators. Early in the movie, Dave shows Becky how his laboratory Tesla coil can be made to play music.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (film) | Disney Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia The Sorcerer's Apprentice (film) [Source] The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a 2010 fantasy adventure film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer , directed by Jon Turteltaub , and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures , the team behind the National Treasure franchise , which also stars Nicolas Cage . The film is named after the The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment in Disney's Fantasia (with one scene being an extensive reference to it), which in turn is based on the late 1890s symphonic poem by Paul Dukas and the 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ballad. Balthazar Blake ( Nicolas Cage ) is a sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan, fighting against the forces of evil, in particular his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath ( Alfred Molina ), while searching for the person who will inherit Merlin's powers. This turns out to be Dave Stutler ( Jay Baruchel ), a physics student, whom Balthazar takes as a reluctant protégé.

The sorcerer gives his unwilling apprentice a crash course in the art and science of magic and sorcery, in order to stop Horvath and Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige) from raising the souls of the evil dead sorcerers ("Morganians") and destroying the world. Contents [ show ] Plot The film opens in Arthurian times with a prologue scene setting up the mythology of the movie. Balthazar, Horvath, and Veronica are the three protégés of Merlin who learned everything about magic and sorcery from Merlin. Until one day when Merlin’s arch nemesis Morgana invades the castle and kills Merlin thanks to the betrayal of Horvath. Balthazar and Veronica, who are lovers, arrive too late. We later learn that the reason or Horvath’s betrayal is due to his love for Veronica and her act of choosing Balthazar over him. Veronica does a spell that merges the soul of Morgana into her own in order to save Balthazar.

Morgana’s scheme ultimately revolves around the destruction of the entire human race and raising the dead, so for the good of the world, Balthazar traps both Horvath and Morgana (now inside Veronica’s body) into a magical nesting doll. Merlin, with his dying breath, tells Balthazar that Morgana must be trapped until the day he finds the prime Merlinian, a direct descendant of Merlin, who is the only one that can defeat her. We then see a montage of Balthazar through the ages visiting children giving them a small silver dragon trinket that Merlin game him. This object will help identify the prime Merlinian. Balthazar also traps other Morganians in the nesting doll as well. We then jump to the year 2000 in New York City. Dave is a ten year old fourth grader going on a field trip with a crush on a girl named Becky. He passes her a note to check a box whether she wants to be his friend or girlfriend. She checks one of the boxes and then leaves it on a bench. When Dave tries to pick it up the wind picks it up and flies away.

Eventually the paper ends up inside an antique shop Dave goes in looking for it and accidentally bumps into and almost breaks an ancient urn. Balthazar who shows up behind him catches it. He tells Dave that this urn is incredibly old and whoever opens it will be trapped for ten years. Dave mentions he’s looking for a note that just coincidentally ended up here. Balthazar believes this to be fate and hands him the tiny silver dragon. In Dave’s hand, it comes alive and twirls around Dave’s finger. Dave is the prime Merlinian. Balthazar tells him to wait there as he goes to look for something in the basement. Meanwhile, Dave moves his finger and notices something bumping into the wall each time he moves his finger. Finally, the nesting doll bursts through the wall and lands in front of him. Dave picks it up and accidentally opens it, releasing Horvath. Before Horvath can kill Dave, Balthazar pushes him at the window and they have an epic wizard fight, with Dave just trying to get out of the way. Dave takes the nesting doll and tries to leave but Horvath won’t let him. Balthazar opens the urn from earlier which sucks both him and Horvath into it.

Dave runs outside and throws the nesting doll into the street. His teacher and the rest of his class find him, worried. He is freaking out and talks nonsense about wizards and tries to show the teacher inside but there is nothing there. A jar filled with water had broken on his pants and the other kids see this and they all taunt him about peeing his pants. Ten years later, Dave is a physics student at NYU with his own private lab in a private basement. At a Physics 101 class, he runs into Becky for the first time since they were ten. She just barely remembers him. He had switched schools after the incident and has become convinced it was all a hallucination. She works at the college radio station as a DJ. He follows her to the station and a lightning strikes the station antenna, knocking out there electronics. Dave offers to help and gets it all fixed. Becky is incredibly grateful and he says he did it because he noticed how important it was to her. The urn in which Balthazar and Horvath are trapped in is in some random couple’s apartment, bought from a flea market. The urn bursts open and Horvath is free again. He asks them if he’s the first to arrive.

They faint. Horvath throws the urn from the apartment and before it smashes on the street Balthazar escapes. Dave comes home to find Horvath waiting for him, asking him where the nesting doll is. Dave doesn’t know since he threw it into the street. Dave runs away and Horvath sends a pack of wolves at him. Dave ends up at the railroad station and falls down on the train tracks. Before the wolves attack him, they become transformed into puppies. Balthazar comes flying in on a giant metal eagle. Dave gets on and slows down Horvath and flies away. Horvath just barely dodges a passing train. Balthazar and Dave land on a roof and the metal eagle transforms back into a gargoyle. Dave is freaking out but Balthazar calms him down and explains the situation to him, leaving out the part about him being the prime Merlinian. Dave says he doesn’t want any part of it. Balthazar summons Dave’s dresser and pulls out the dragon ring and asks him why he kept it. Dave says he was going to sell it on eBay but Balthazar tells him that he is a terrible liar which is a good thing.

Dave promises he’ll help him up until they find the nesting doll and then he can go back to his life. Balthazar summons a spell to help him find it. Storm clouds hover over the downtown area indicating that that is where they must go. Horvath goes back to the former antique shop and is able to sense what happened to the nesting doll. He sees that a Chinese woman has picked it up. He knows that he must go to Chinatown. Balthazar goes to the car impound lot and retrieves his car to stay inconspicuous. On the drive to the nesting doll, Balthazar teaches Dave a basic fire spell.They reach Chinatown where a big celebration is happening. Dave waits outside while Balthazar goes inside. Upstairs he meets the old Chinese woman and he speaks Mandarin to her. She says he speaks wonderful Cantonese. It’s Horvath in disguise. He has already unleashed one of the Morganians, Sun Lok, from the nesting doll. They fight and Sun-Lok ends up on the streets, where Balthazar tells Dave to run. Sun-Lok transforms one of the fake dragon floats into an actual dragon which chases Dave.

Horvath and Balthazar fight and Balthazar gets the upper hand, taking the nesting doll away from him. Dave runs up a fire escape as the dragon chases after him, having trouble conjuring up the fire spell. He shoots it just in time defeating Sun-Lok. In the car, Balthazar asks for the ring back per their agreement. Dave decides not to now that he’s had a taste of magic and wants to learn more. They need a place to practice and they decide to use Dave’s lab. Balthazar gives Dave the book that holds the entire history of sorcery including the things they just did today. Dave agrees to take on the responsibility and they begin training. Meanwhile, Horvath goes to visit the current Morganian, a Criss Angel type magician celebrity named Drake Stone. He is pampered and uneducated in the dark arts. Horvath intends to teach him as well as utilize him to set up his plan to raise the dead and destroy humanity. He decides to do this in the Financial District of New York using the satellite dishes. On a break, Balthazar and Dave have dinner sitting on a bench outside Becky’s radio station.

Balthazar is very negative on the relationship and tells him that love is not good for a sorcerer. Dave says that she is the one for him and that he loves her. Dave gets up and follows her as she leaves the station. They go down into the subway station and a mugger robs them at gunpoint, stealing her grandmother’s bracelet. Dave chases after him and clumsily uses his magic to knock him out. He comes back with her stuff back, impressing her and she notices something different about him. He offers to help tutor her on the physics at his lab. She agrees as she boards the next train. At his lab, Becky arrives and introduces Balthazar as his uncle who leaves despite his best efforts to stop Dave from pursuing this. Dave shows off his Tesla coils and science projects and shows off a cool musical element to his coils. The next day he walks her to yoga class and they make a date for the next day. In the bathroom, Drake confronts Dave and pushes him around. Horvath arrives and tells him that Balthazar is keeping something from him. He demands to know where the nesting doll is.

Balthazar arrives just in time and traps Horvath inside the bathroom mirror and knocks out Drake. Back at the lab, Dave demands to know everything and Balthazar tells him, including what happened to his great love Veronica and the fact that the prime Merlinian will be so powerful that he won’t need the ring to do magic. Dave tries to get ready for his date and clean up the lab but he gets frustrated with the mess so he uses his magic to get the brooms to come to life. When he comes back from his shower, the entire lab is a bigger mess with the entire floor flooded and everything inanimate coming to life and causing a giant mess. Becky knocks on the door and he rushes to the door and has to tell her to leave. As he tries to deal with the ever escalating mess, his electric lab equipment almost electrocutes him until the timely arrival of Balthazar, who with a wave of his hand cleans the mess. He chastises him for taking shortcuts. They get into a big fight with Dave storming out. Horvath gets the school records of Dave using a “Jedi mind trick” on the registrar’s office. He finds out where his private lab space is.

Dave sees Becky with her friends and sees how he doesn’t belong and leaves. Becky sees him and follows him to the roof where Balthazar had taken him to at the beginning. He’s about to throw the ring away until Becky stops him. She tells him that nothing is ruined with them and she really cares for him. At his lab, Dave returns and Balthazar says there’s no need to apologize but Dave pushes him into a grating and traps him. It’s Drake in disguise. Horvath arrives as well and they search for the nesting doll and find it. Balthazar frees himself and tries to fight them but almost loses until Dave arrives and saves his life. Drake and Horvath leave with what they were after and Dave and Balthazar give chase. What follows is an exciting car chase which ends with Horvath and Drake getting away. Back at Drake’s apartment, Drake wonders how they open it. Horvath uses a parasite spell to steal Drake’s power and life force and uses that to free the next Morganian, a witch from the Salem Witch Trials. This Morganian goes to Becky’s radio station and kidnaps her.

Dave and Balthazar arrive at Drake’s apartment, searching for Horvath. They split up. Balthazar gets trapped in a Persian rug quick sand trap. Dave finds the nesting doll almost too easily. Just as he goes back to the front door, he finds Horvath with his cane to Becky’s throat. Horvath demands both his ring and the nesting doll or Becky dies. Dave relents and gives him both. Horvath fires an energy bolt at the two, which they dodge, and flees just as Balthazar has freed himself and arrives. Dave apologizes but Balthazar says he would have done the same thing. Balthazar goes to the balcony and flies away on his giant metal eagle, to Becky’s shock. Dave offers to help but Balthazar says he can’t since he’s powerless without the ring. Horvath kills the Salem Witch to steal her power in order to free Morgana. Dave tries to drop Becky off but she won’t have any of it. She’s involved now. Dave comes up with a plan using his Tesla coils strapped to Balthazar’s car. He also finds a note with a necklace telling Dave to give it to Veronica when this is all over.

Balthazar arrives to the Financial District to find Morgana standing in the middle of the circle with Horvath’s assistance summoning her raising the dead spell. Dave and Becky, in the car, already see the spell taking hold in the sky. Dave stops the car and tells Becky to climb the building to move the satellite in order to disrupt the spell. Before she goes, Dave asks her what box she checked off at the beginning of the film in case he dies. She’ll tell him when he doesn’t die. Horvath finds Balthazar and fights him off. He raises to life the metal bull nearby and it chases after Balthazar. Horvath is about to be victorious when Dave drives in and uses the Tesla coils attached to the car to give a great shock to Horvath’s cane, defeating him and his bull. Becky successfully disrupts the satellite dish wrecking the spell. Balthazar absorbs Morgana’s soul from Veronica’s body, freeing her. Balthazar tries to get Dave to trap him in the nesting doll but he won’t. Morgana leaves Balthazar’s body and frees herself. Morgana blasts at the group but Dave blocks it without the help of the ring.

He really is the prime Merlinian. They get into a huge battle where Morgana blasts at Veronica and Balthazar. Dave is able to summon up enough energy to defeat her completely. He sees Veronica over Balthazar’s body. He’s dead. Dave won’t accept this and uses his magic to resuscitate him. He lives and Balthazar and Veronica kiss, finally reunited. Becky arrives and she and Dave kiss. She tells him that she checked girlfriend. Dave asks her if she wants to go to Paris and the giant metal eagle lands next to them. They fly away to Paris happy and victorious. After the end credits, Horvath takes his hat from Balthazar's shop. Cast Nicolas Cage as Balthazar Blake , a one-thousand-plus-year old sorcerer of the "777th degree." Based on the magician in Fantasia . Alice Krige as Morgana le Fay , a wicked sorcereress and the primary antagonist. James A. Stephens as Merlin , the legendary wizard killed in AD 740 by Horvath and Morgana. Gregory Woo as Sun Lok, a Chinese wizard.

Nicole Ehinger as Abigail Williams , a witch in the second-to-last layer around the Grimhold, who was accredited for starting the Salem witch trials. Robert Capron as Oliver Twistmeyer, Dave Stutler's best friend as a child. Ethan Peck as Andre Dunlap Sierra, Takoda, Samson, and Bandit from Howling Woods Farm as the wolves. Production The basic idea for the movie was mostly Nicolas Cage's, who wanted to explore a mystic world and play a character with magical powers, and following a suggestion by his producer friend Todd Garner, decided to make a feature length movie based upon the Fantasia segment of the same name. On February 12, 2007, this film was announced by Disney. References to the original animation include the scene where Dave animates broomsticks to clean his laboratory, and having Mickey Mouse 's hat in the post-credits scene. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is set in New York City, and most scenes were shot on location, in places such as Washington Square Park and Chinatown's Eldrige Street. Dave's laboratory was filmed in either an abandoned subway station located under the New York City Hall or a studio recreation of it.

In the early morning hours of May 4, 2009, a Ferrari F430 being driven during filming of a chase sequence, lost control and careened into the window of a Sbarro restaurant in Times Square , injuring two pedestrians, one of whom was struck by a falling lamppost. Filming resumed the following night, when yet another accident occurred. The two accidents were blamed on rain making the roads slick. To make the magic more believable, it was decided to an emphasis of practical, on-set effects, such as making real fire, with fluids or flash powder being used for colored flames. To provide a lighting reference for the plasma bolts, the actors wore gloves with LED displays to make them glow before adding the computer-generated shot. For floating objects, they were either thrown with wires or held by stuntment wearing green chroma key suits. Reception Critical reception The film has received generally mixed reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 42% based on 163 reviews, with an average score of 5.2/10.

The critical consensus is: It has a likeable cast and loads of CGI spectacle, but for all but the least demanding viewers, The Sorcerer's Apprentice will be less than spellbinding. Another review aggregator, Metacritic , which assigns a normalized rating from 0-100 of top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 46. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter has said that "The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a tired relic of summer-movie cliches, clearly beaten to death by far too many credited writers." Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four and wrote "This is a much better film than Airbender , which is faint praise, but it's becoming clear that every weekend brings another heavily marketed action "comedy" that pounds tens of millions out of consumers before evaporating." In July 2010, Parade (magazine) magazine listed the film #1 on its list of "Biggest Box Office Flops of 2010 (So Far).

Box office The Sorcerer's Apprentice made an opening gross of $3,873,997 on its first day (Wednesday July 14, 2010). It finished at #3 on its first weekend with $17,619,622 behind Inception and Despicable Me in the United States and Canada and gained another $8,928,216 on its first weekend overseas (in 13 countries) for a worldwide opening of $26,547,841. On October 28, 2010, The Sorcerer's Apprentice closed at the box-office in the United States and Canada with $63,150,991 and, as of December 12, 2010, it has earned $152,132,612 in other countries totaling up to $215,283,603 worldwide.

Besides the United States and Canada, other countries where it grossed more than $10 million were Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States ($13,630,194), France and the Maghreb region ($12,930,320), and Japan ($10,632,660). Its largest overseas weekend was August 13–15, during which it grossed $14,091,169 in 42 countries. It occupies the fourth place on the all-time chart of Sword and Sorcery movies in the U.S. and Canada, and the third place on the same chart worldwide. Home media It has sold 1,288,735 DVD units (equivalent to $21,609,680) since its release in DVD. Adding in its box-office revenue, the film's earnings sum up to $236,893,283.

Gallery Fantasia in Eight Parts: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" | The Walt Disney Family Museum | Fantasia in Eight Parts: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" August at The Walt Disney Family Museum features Walt Disney’s classic Fantasia, a musical masterpiece that features the talent of renowned conductor Leopold Stokowski, and led to the development of stereophonic surround sound. Fantasia (1940) screens daily through August at 11am, 1:30pm, and 4pm (except Tuesdays, and August 25 and 4pm showings on August 15, 18, and 24). Further program information and tickets are available at the Reception and Member Service Desk at the Museum, or online by clicking here . As Fantasia is a feature film made up of eight animated segments, we're dedicating separate posts throughout the month for each part... the first being "The Sorcerer's Apprentice": After the phenomenal success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney utilized its earnings to construct a new, state-of-the-art studio on Buena Vista Street in Burbank, California. One of the first two animated features completed there was Bambi.

The other, a series of animated sequences set to classical music, was known early on as The Concert Feature. In 1937, several months before the premiere of Snow White, Walt expressed a desire to set animation to classical music. He had already enjoyed success with his music-driven Silly Symphonies series. “Music has always played a very important part since sound came to the cartoon,” Walt said. He chose The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, an 1897 concert piece by French composer Paul Dukas, which was based on a 1797 poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which itself was based on a 2nd century tale by the Greek satirist Lucian. Its story revolves around an apprentice of a great sorcerer who has grown tired from repetitive manual labor, and decides to automate his chores with a little help from his departed master’s hat. When the apprentice falls asleep, however, he awakens to find himself in a bit of a predicament. The Disney story team began planning Apprentice around the recordings of acclaimed Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.

That changed in 1938 after a chance encounter Walt had with the great conductor Leopold Stokowski (a fixture in Hollywood at the time, providing his services on a variety of films). “I first met Walt Disney in a restaurant,” Stokowski outlined in a letter he wrote in 1967. “I was alone having dinner at a table near him and he called across to me, ‘Why don’t we sit together?’ Then he began to tell me he was interested in Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as a possible short, and did I like the music. I said I liked it very much and would be happy to cooperate with him.” Apprentice was originally planned as its own short film. No dialogue, no subtitles, just the apprentice and his co-stars moving to the Dukas score. Mickey, however, was not everyone’s first choice to play the apprentice. There was some early talk of featuring Dopey in the starring role, but Walt was not interested in using any characters from Snow White. Stokowski himself suggested to Walt that they create an entirely new personality to play the apprentice, a suggestion Walt promptly ignored.

Walt wanted to cast Mickey Mouse, who given his mischievous nature yet universal appeal made him the logical choice. Walt even called upon “Mickey expert” Fred Moore to redesign the mouse, to allow a greater degree of expression. The end result entailed a slight “humanizing” of Mickey, with more definition in his face, and pupils for his eyes. A Stokowski suggestion Walt did like was that they expand on his idea, and create a whole series of shorts set to classical music. The conductor played other works for Walt, and the two began to verbalize their interpretations to one another. Their respective visions varied from degrees of brightness, to which color dominated the landscape. Soon after that meeting, Walt hired Deems Taylor, a well-known musicologist. Taylor and Stokowski sat in on story sessions with Walt and his people, and with Walt being the ultimate story man, ideas for this unprecedented work in animation became grander and more innovative. So innovative in fact, the film itself was responsible for the creation of an entirely new theatrical sound system (known then as Fantasound).

Ultimately, the project grew into what would be Walt Disney Studios’ longest animated feature (still to this day), and the working title The Concert Feature was dropped in favor of an alternate working title: Fantasia. Keith Gluck is a WDFM volunteer, writer/editor for thedisneyproject.com , and lifelong student of Disney. His Disney life started early, visiting Disneyland before turning one, and writing his very first book report on a Walt Disney biography for kids. In celebration of National Book Week, Disney author and historian J.B. Kaufman will discuss Disney’s Big Little Books on Saturday August 25 at 3pm here at The Walt Disney Family Museum. In discussing how these little gems were assembled, Kaufman will use clips from early Disney films and comic strips to show how original stories often went through interesting adaptations as they were reworked to fit the small book medium. Click here for more info and tickets. [Images above: Concept art from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Courtesy The Walt Disney Company, ©Disney.] Discussion *except every Tuesday, when the museum is closed After School Animation (Middle and High School) Studio Class Every Wed | Jan 4 – Feb 22 | 4 – 6pm Gesture Drawing (Adult Session)

Question: In the Disney film Fantasia, who takes the role of the sorcerer's apprentice?
Answer: Mickey Mouse